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From The Sunday Times

February 24, 2008

The most expensive streets in the country

A new report reveals the most expensive streets in the country – and how their prices just keep on rising

Helen Davies

The price difference between Britain’s most expensive streets and the rest of the housing market is growing, as “clusters of exclusivity” emerge across the country, a new survey released last week reveals.

The report, by Mouseprice.net, using Land Registry data to analyse property values street by street, named Courtenay Avenue, in Hampstead, north London, as the most expensive, with average prices of £6.8m – up on the £5.5m recorded by Kensington Avenue last year. Elsewhere, from Hale in Cheshire to Harpenden, Hertfordshire, the top addresses are pulling away from the rest of the market.

“Geography doesn’t matter in the same way it used to,” says Selwyn Lim, director of Mouseprice. “The rate of growth for a luxury townhouse in Chelsea will have more in common with a mansion in Hale, a few hundred miles away, than one a few hundred metres away. It is all about exclusivity. These tiny clusters command a premium well above others, even very nice properties a couple of streets away.” In London, for example, three quite small areas dominate the rankings. The first cluster consists of only five avenues between the Hampstead and Highgate golf courses (Courtenay Avenue among them); the second is demarcated by the King’s Road to the south and Fulham Road to the north; and the third is just below Hyde Park.

The pattern is repeated across the country, where more than 2,000 streets – all in England – now have homes costing an average of £1m or more.

Hale, Greater Manchester (15,000 people; nine estate agents), has some of the most expensive houses outside the southeast, and is a favourite haunt of footballers and their Wags. Average prices in Hale’s most expensive street have now topped £2m, and the village also accounts for another five of the 10 priciest streets in the northwest. “It has always enjoyed a certain kudos,” says Anthony Jevons, a director of Jackson-Stops & Staff’s office in Hale. “There are a lot of very successful people who choose to live here – captains of industry and footballers. Prices aren’t going to go backwards. They will just keep rising.” Prices at the top of the market have also surged ahead in the West Midlands, where the 10 most expensive streets have average values of more than £1m, up from eight last year. Streets in Sutton Coldfield account for half the entries in the list – topped by Roman Grange (average price, £1.47m).

In Yorkshire and the Humber region too, all of the top 10 also have average prices of more than £1m, compared to only five streets last year. Fulwith Mill Lane, in Harrogate, at £1.25m, is the most expensive here.

And the Surrey commuter belt is as expansive and expensive as ever: Weybridge dislodges Virginia Water from the top spot for the first time, with an average price of £4.4m.

Indeed, the only place with no seven-figure streets is Wales. “But,” Lim says, “it is only a matter of time.”

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